


Flaw in the designs

by allofspace



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Universe, M/M, everything is pretty much normal, rodney is an automaton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofspace/pseuds/allofspace
Summary: Based on artwork by thetinmongoose for the McShep Big Bang 2020!!!Rodney is an automaton that John finds on Atlantis. Three snapshots from their meeting onward.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34
Collections: McShep Big Bang 2020





	Flaw in the designs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thetinmongoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetinmongoose/gifts).
  * Inspired by [These Veins of Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453903) by [thetinmongoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetinmongoose/pseuds/thetinmongoose). 



1\. The meeting

John had mostly gotten used to random objects lighting up or whirring to life at his touch. It didn’t happen to many of the others, only those with the ATA gene, which were few and far between on their expedition team. John mostly reacted with delightful surprise. Something about it was exhilarating. He had this tiny bit of DNA that connected with the mechanics on this floating city over 3 million lightyears from home. Earth. Sure, he may have jumped a little the first time it happened, but after that, he almost hoped for it. Waiting for that spark - not quite an electric shock, but a warmth that spread from his hand into his blood and throughout his body. A feeling of right-ness.

Dr. Carson Beckett, on the other hand, did not take to his newfound skills so kindly, which led to a few rather hilarious mishaps, and just a couple life-threatening ones.

John had taken to walking the halls in his free time, dragging his hand along the wall as he went, discovering hidden compartments or new rooms. Some were on the map in the Gate room but they hadn’t bothered exploring them yet and some weren’t there at all. John carried a small notebook and pencil in his cargo pants, and on its pages he kept crudely scribbled maps to mark those secret places. He would keep them for himself until he had a reason not to. He liked having secrets with Atlantis. It was odd how quickly this place started to feel more like home than any place on Earth.

It was on one of these walks, aimlessly walking, letting the city guide him, fingertips not even touching the walls sometimes, but still feeling that connection like static, when he came upon a door. The strangest part was that it didn’t open at his touch like most had. Instead, the seam outlining the shape of a door lit up as he passed it. He could have missed it if he’d been looking elsewhere as there was no sound or other clue, only a faint blue light.

He paused, considering what to do next. There weren’t exactly door handles anywhere else on Atlantis, but there must be some other way to open the thing, some additional step. He felt along the seam, felt along the wall until he found a small square that he was able to push in. And out came a small panel roughly the size of a hand. He looked at his hand, figuring if it was fingerprint related, he might not get in but nothing bad could happen… could it? On the other hand, if it did work for some reason, maybe he should be worried about opening a door with extra security that was not present almost anywhere else in the city. He shrugged, his curiosity getting the better of him, backed by a confidence and trust that the city wouldn’t lead him into danger he couldn’t handle.

He held his breath as he placed his hand on the interface, and let out a sigh of relief when the machine had finished its scan and let out a happy-sounding beep. The door wooshed open in front him, and inside was pitch black. Another held breath as John walked into the room, and another sigh of relief when the lights turned on immediately.

The room seemed uncared for in a way John hadn’t seen anywhere else within the city yet. There were large cloth sheets covering most of the items in the small room. John had to walk around some boxes to reach the centre. He pulled away a sheet and uncovered a console, not unlike others they’d come across in the city. It looked like the room must have served some purpose, but the boxes piled around the room, made it seem like some abandoned project had been housed here and they figured they might as well turn it into a storage closet.

John went around pulling off some other sheets, which covered a lot of things John couldn’t identify or even start to guess the purpose. He got to the last item, it was tall and cylindrical shaped and he wasn’t sure why he hesitated. This is where the console faced, had he purposely waited to reveal it last? He wasn’t sure.

He swallowed dryly as he grabbed the sheet, and like a bandaid he needed to rip off, he pulled the sheet with more force than necessary. He hadn’t been expecting anything in particular, but seeing a cherubic faced man through a small round glass window, was pretty far from anything he would have guessed. The man’s eyes were closed and whether he was asleep or dead was impossible to tell. John thought he looked almost peaceful, which led him to at least hold out hope that this wasn’t some weird sort of standing coffin. John felt around the pod to see if there was any sort of manual release, but had no luck. He went back to the console in the middle of the room. He hesitantly hovered his hands over the part that looked like it could be some sort of control panel and it lit up. His ATA gene may have turned the thing on, but it didn’t help him decipher the array of buttons. Why couldn’t the ancients just use the universal symbol for eject?

John closed his eyes, holding his hands above the panel, as if trying to let the gene guide him. Or maybe letting the city itself guide him. He laid his hand on one of the buttons and held his breath for a moment as nothing happened. Then a loud _whoosh_ sound as the front of the pod jumped open a small sliver right down the middle. Then it continued to open the rest of the way very slowly. 

The release of air had caused a dust cloud in front of the pod so that John couldn’t see the man momentarily. When it finally settled, his jaw dropped a little. As he looked over the man from the face he’d seen through the glass, eyes still closed, to his waist, which was where John became confused, or maybe intrigued. The legs were… robotic, for lack of a better word. John briefly thought that the ancients would laugh at their Earth version of a robot, as even these bare parts looked more advanced than any robotics John had ever seen. What was most interesting, was how it wasn’t just a straight line across the waist that differentiated the top and bottom half. It was jagged, or tattered almost. The man was clothed, and definitely seemed to have skin, yet the clothing and skin seemed like one thing where it hung tattered on the metal frame of the legs. 

John had a sense in the back of his mind that this should maybe freak him out a little. Instead he just said “Cool” under his breath. 

“Are you quite finished ogling?” said a voice. 

John’s head shot back up to meet the eyes of this… robot man he’d just awoken. There were now bright blue eyes trained on John, and he felt a little sheepish since he was sort of ogling the technology that seemed to be a part of his body. 

“Oh, hey,” John said lamely. “Sorry about that. I’ve just never seen… anything like this.” John gestured at the man’s legs.

The man looked down, and sighed, bringing his head back up with a deep frown on his face. “Right. They left me unfinished,” he said mostly to himself. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Uh, at least a couple hundred years,” John said, unsure how the man might take this news. 

An eyebrow shot up and the frown morphed into a thin line. “Interesting. And who are you? You are not a Lantean, yet you feel suspiciously similar.”

“Well from what we gather, they had to shut down Atlantis in a hurry and abandon the city to save it from the Wraith. Then they came to Earth, which is where I’m from, and you know... procreated. So their DNA is still in some of us from Earth, and we discovered some of their technology there, and that’s sort of how we got here,” John explained. Elizabeth would have done a much better job, but he figured it was good enough. The man seemed to be considering this with an expression John couldn’t yet read. 

“Ha!” The man said suddenly. “Idiots.”

John raised an eyebrow back. If this guy was at least in some part, a robot, that was a pretty interesting personality trait to program. John decided to leave that train of thought for a moment. “So the wraith… is that why they had to leave you unfinished?”

The other man screwed up his face, another frown setting in, but more indignant than the last. “No. When they abandoned me, things were fine. I’d wager it could have been close to a decade before the Wraith scared them away. I’ll know more once I can sync up,” he finished matter-of-factly. He was looking at John expectantly.

“Sync up?” John asked. 

“Yes. I need to sync with the city. There will be much information to transfer. Please start the process.” Again with the expectant face. 

John just stared back, and then looked down at the panel. “Yeah, I don’t know how to work this thing. I sort of woke you up by accident. Well on purpose, but also by accident. I mean I didn’t know if it would work but the city sort of… guided me. Maybe. Or maybe it was an accident.” John wasn’t sure exactly why he was rambling, only that he hated feeling like an idiot, especially in front of some super sentient robot man who could “sync” up with the city that John had felt such a close bond with since he arrived. 

The man rolled his eyes, sighing with exasperation. “The bottom left button.”

“Got it,” John said with a nod and pressed the button. 

The man’s head flew back and his body tensed for a rather long minute, where John briefly wondered if he’d accidentally killed him, before he finally slumped forward. 

“Well,” the man said. “That certainly was a lot to take in.” He spoke with a little less edge now, as if tired, and looked at John inquisitively. But soon enough, the look vanished and he directed John again. 

“Now, the bottom right button if you will.”

John hesitated only a second, not sure what to expect this time, but went ahead and pressed it. A stream of something seemed to shoot out from the edges of the pod, and made a blurry cloud around the man’s lower half. The cloud started to shrink away from the top, and John realized the cloud was somehow “finishing” the man’s bottom half. 

“Woah,” John said. 

“Yes, the nanobot technology is actually quite impressive. Ironically, I helped the Lanteans perfect the use of nanobots to create the synthetic skin, and they didn’t even have the decency to put me to sleep completed.”

“Nanobots,” John repeated, impressed. His brain was busy trying to comprehend it all. 

“Yes, I just said that,” the man snapped.

Then John laughed, a little wildly. “This is the coolest day ever!”

This seemed to surprise the robot-man, who replied with a “Thank you?”

“I’m John. Major John Sheppard.” He finally walked around the console and put out a hand. 

“You may call me Rodney,” the man, Rodney, said. He finally stepped out of the pod, and accepted John’s handshake.

John may have held onto Rodney’s hand a few moments longer than necessary, turning it and looking over it, amazed that it could feel so real and be made out of nanobots. 

Rodney cleared his throat to signal to John that this had now gone on for too long. John let go of the hand instantly. 

“Sorry, it’s just… so cool,” he said with a grin. 

“Yes, well, please do try and get your tiny brain wrapped around it a little quicker.”

“Hey, that’s not nice,” John said, with some fake-hurt. Rodney saw right through his act and only rolled his eyes again. This made John remember his earlier train of thought. “So you’re… a robot, right?”

“Automaton,” Rodney corrected.

“Like C3PO?”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You’ll learn,” John said with a lopsided smile.

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I don’t think I’ll like it,” Rodney replied suspiciously. 

John laughed. “So someone had to program you right?”

Rodney seemed to hesitate a moment. “Yes, sort of… initially.”

“So why would they program a robot with so much attitude?” John asked. 

“Automaton,” Rodney corrected quickly, then furrowed his brow. “And they didn’t. Not on purpose anyway. They wanted me to be sentient, “artificial” intelligence, but they barely understood what they were doing. Like I said.. Idiots. They wanted me to have feelings, to be as human as possible, and didn’t realize that meant I would develop such a… strong… personality,” he said. 

John considered this. He could see how programming a highly intelligent, sentient, emoting _automaton_ and then being surprised when it became arrogant, sarcastic and bitter could be seen as idiotic. John just nodded, unsure of what he could say. 

Rodney continued though. “Programming me to feel was probably the cruelest act of all by the Lanteans.”

And John suddenly missed the snarky attitude. Rodney sounded so dejected. “Idiots,” John said. 

Then Rodney laughed abruptly again, a mischievous smile on his lips. 

And it was odd, as John watched Rodney a familiar warmth spread through him. A spark. And John had to remind himself that the man standing across from him was not human, or at least not in the main sense of the term. 

All the while, Rodney, who was too human for his own comfort, had sensed something about John. Even before syncing with the city, and feeling the overwhelming wave of rightness. A wave of memories that were his but also weren’t. He saw John’s face as he first arrived on Atlantis, and felt the lightest fingers across his skin, as John brushed them against the walls. And Rodney knew the more robotic part of him had kept him together in that moment as the information had rushed through him. Trying not to show John everything he felt, trying not to collapse with it all. 

“So,” John said. “As much as I’d like to keep you my little secret-” John’s ears burned red for reasons he didn’t yet want to think about, “-I don’t think the boss would like that too much.”

Rodney watched John, noticing the red tips of his pointy ears, and filing it away. Gathering information for some later date for Rodney to replay and replay and go crazy in trying to find meaning. 

“Take me to your leader,” Rodney replied. 

John eyed him suspiciously. “So you do know pop culture.”

“No,” Rodney said innocently, cocking his head to one side. 

John stared another moment then turned towards the door. Rodney grinned behind his back. He’d have to thank Lieutenant Aiden Ford if he ever got to meet him, who had written the phrase in a drafted digital message. 

“Hey Elizabeth,” John said into his walkie. “Meet me in the conference room in five. There’s… something you’re going to want to see.”

“More ogling I assume,” Rodney said as he followed John out into the hallway. 

John grinned. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone do anything untoward.”

“Wow, thank you for protecting my honour,” Rodney said seriously. John snorted a laugh in return and the edge of Rodney’s mouth curled into a small smile. 

They spent the next several hours in the conference room. John got a disappointed “we’ll talk about this later” sort of look from Elizabeth when he had no choice but to tell her how he happened upon the door, in an unexplored wing of the city, and then proceeded to press random buttons with no back-up. 

But Elizabeth was a little too awed at Rodney to be too mad at John yet, and John really hoped she’d forget by the time she was less excited. And true to John’s word, he refused to let Beckett run any tests on Rodney. And Rodney, for his part, helped by offering to send Beckett, Zelenka, and some other scientists all the information that existed about the technology that was used to make Rodney. 

John could imagine just how much information that would be, and how long it would take even their whole science team to sift through. Rodney’s smirk was practically imperceptible, but John could see it because he already knew to look for it. 

The meeting had mostly concluded and they’d finished questioning both John and Rodney for now. “I think somebody should look after… Rodney,” Elizabeth said. She kept leaving an awkwardly long pause before saying Rodney’s name. Like it was odd to refer to him that way. But John thought she was making it awkward where it needn’t be. 

Rodney scoffed at the suggestion. “I don’t need a babysitter. I am the city.”

John’s eyebrows raised a little at that and he only barely managed to hold back his questions. He could ask later, when they were under less scrutiny. 

“We are fine with you being here,” Rodney continued, suddenly referring to himself and Atlantis as ‘we’. “And in fact I could be of much use to your operation. If we were up to anything nefarious, there is little anyone here could do about it anyway.”

John could practically see the hole Rodney was digging himself into, solidified by the tightening of Elizabeth’s lips and her white knuckle grip on the chair in front of her as she stood. 

John put a hand on Rodney’s shoulder in a show of solidarity. It surprised John how soft Rodney was. He hadn’t been sure what to expect. Sure, when they’d shaken hands, Rodney’s skin felt real, but John wasn’t sure what to expect of the more cushion-y parts. But as he found out, Rodney was in fact as soft as he looked. The nanobot technology was definitely impressive. 

Rodney did his best not to tense under John’s touch. He’d felt those fingers grazing the city’s walls, already a feather light touch made even fainter through the hazy memory of the syncing process. To have those fingers resting on his shoulder, heavy and warm, could have short-circuited Rodney if he’d had any circuits (how inefficient that would be). 

“I’ll take care of him Elizabeth,” John said smoothly. 

Rodney hadn’t missed the way Dr. Elizabeth Weir had tensed at Rodney’s earlier statement, but he also couldn’t be bothered to worry about her feelings on the matter. As Rodney had said, there was little anyone could do if he wanted to turn on them… but he didn’t have that inclination. So far, he and the city preferred most of the people here to the Lantean ancestors.

When Elizabeth nodded tightly, John gave a small salute to Elizabeth and Rodney did the same, which earned a small muffled laugh from John. Then John’s hand moved to Rodney’s elbow to lead him out of the room. 

They began to walk down a hall just to get away from the larger masses of people. “Well, that was...” John started.

“Insulting? Disparaging? Exhausting?” Rodney offered.

John smirked. “Well, I was going to say it was interesting, but sure, those work too.”

Rodney quirked a small smile at him. John cleared his throat.

“So, did you mean that thing you said?” John asked, going for casual. “That thing about you being the city?”

John wasn’t sure why it felt like such a heavy question. 

“Yes, in a way. In most ways I guess,” Rodney replied thoughtfully.

“What does that mean exactly?” He bit his lip, waiting for the response, which took a while. 

Rodney walked slowly as he gathered the necessary information and crafted the words in a way he thought John might understand. “The city is a part of me. And I am a part of it. We are separate but also one and the same. It is like my eyes and I am its hands. Apart, we both aren’t as much as we are together.”

John nodded without saying a word and Rodney wasn’t sure if the answer was upsetting or nonsensical, or maybe both. 

“I see,” John finally said. 

“Do you?” Rodney asked.

“I will,” John replied.

“Okay,” Rodney said, as they fell into step in silence. 

“Where are we going?” Rodney asked. They’d been wandering down the halls a little aimlessly, but Rodney had realized they were headed down one that connected to little other than personal quarters’. 

“Oh,” John said, genuinely a little confused. “I hadn’t really been thinking about it. But this is my room if you want to lay low for a bit.”

Rodney thought about the litany of questions, and the prying eyes of inquisitive minds through every hall. “Yes, laying low sounds good.”

John felt like a kid suddenly, showing Rodney around his room, being embarrassed about the state of it, while also wanting to show off cool relics from Earth.

“What is football?” Rodney asked as John tried to explain the hail mary tape. 

“Here, just watch,” John said. 

And it shouldn’t have been so easy, befriending a nanobot automaton, but it really was. And John wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and Rodney was that gift. He watched the movies and shows that John offered to him, and asked questions to understand John’s love for them, and then teased John relentlessly about all the right things. Like his inexplicable love for Robin in the Batman movies. 

“He is clearly inferior to Batman,” Rodney said.

“No, but he’s so much cooler than Batman in this movie. Chris O’Donnell is just way cooler than Val Kilmer,” John argued petulantly. 

“If you mean more attractive, then yes, I’m inclined to agree.”

John’s cheeks burned red, not having analyzed his attachment to Robin closely enough to make that connection before. And in moments like these, John would remember how weird it all was. Rodney was real, in the ways that mattered, but John kept getting hung up on the word ‘human’ and what it meant to be alive, what it meant to feel. And then his brain would start to hurt, because he was never good at philosophical discussions. But for some reason this one was so important to him and he kept coming back to it. 

He always went from wondering about what could be considered Rodney’s brain, and what happened in there, and what, if anything, could be considered a heart, and even though he was programmed with emotions, what did that really mean, and how could his skin be so soft, and what would it be like to be held in those arms. 

It was odd at first, thinking about the connection John had to the city. And the fact that Rodney was practically a physical embodiment of the city. But funnier, and softer, and what they had wasn’t really the same at all. It became less important to John with time, or maybe the two just became more separated in his mind. 

John would get lost in his maze of thoughts every so often until Rodney would burst through them with another offhand comment or inquisition about whatever they were watching, and all the complications were forgotten. Because Rodney was just Rodney, who watched old movies with John, played stupid games with him, had his back, teased him relentlessly, and John wanted to revel in that simplicity as much as he could.

2\. The Departure  
“Begin evacuations!” Elizabeth commanded. Then all hell broke loose. 

The Athosians were first through the gate, eager to be escaping but nervous about the planet they were heading to. It would be the first time they saw Earth. Not that they’d actually see much of it, John thought offhandedly. No, they’d be hunkering down in Cheyenne Mountain until things here were fixed, or until some Plan B was thought up. 

But John couldn’t worry about that now. He fought through the sea of people, going upstream as they all funneled past him toward the gate. He had a job to do, several jobs actually, as he checked labs and rooms, and walkied to ask for vital sign checks so he could help any stragglers. 

“John, there you are,” Rodney’s voice said, a hand gripping John’s shoulder. 

John was currently corralling some scientists out of their lab, packing up equipment furiously as John growled at them to leave it. It would either be here when they got back, or it would all be pointless anyway. 

“Rodney, great, can you help get this equipment to the gate? Not that we don’t have plenty of microscopes on Earth,” he said, annoyed. 

“Yes, of course,” said Rodney, but there was something in his tone that John noticed. Noticed, but didn’t have time to question right now. They needed to be evacuated 10 minutes ago. The wraith were on their way and Atlantis didn’t have enough power to sustain the shields and the weapons for as long as they’d need. Plenty to keep the gate open though. 

John’s heart ached at the thought of leaving the city behind. The city that had become home unnervingly quick. John wondered if Rodney was feeling the same. Or likely feeling much worse. Maybe that’s what he’d heard in Rodney’s voice. 

They brought the scientists and their loads of equipment to the gate, ushering them through. It had taken longer than John thought. The place was no longer bustling, and instead was nearly abandoned. The red emergency lights flashed, an alarm wailed over the sound system. Only Elizabeth and John’s team remained.

Elizabeth came over to John. “Ready?”

“Not really,” John said. He took another look around. “Are we sure that’s everyone?”

“Yes, Major. Now, we have to get out of here and hope the city’s shields can handle themselves without having to support us as well.”

“Alright, let’s go,” John said, and his team moved forward. Rodney, however, did not. 

John looked back at him. “Rodney, I know it’s hard, but we have to leave. Come on,” he put a hand on Rodney’s arm, trying to pull him forward gently. Rodney stood still.

“John, I can’t,” Rodney said, barely above a whisper. John almost didn’t hear it over the alarms. Rodney’s mouth was set in a deep frown, but he held John’s gaze, and John could see the determination in his eyes. 

“You guys go on ahead,” John said to the others. They hesitated, looking between one another. “Go!”

And they didn’t need to be told again. His team gave him quick nods and turned towards the gate. Elizabeth looked at him with concern, looked between him and Rodney, and John thought she might say something. But instead she turned and walked through the gate with his team. 

“Rodney, what the hell are you talking about?” John asked, voice pleading. He was glad his team was gone, not able to hear him practically beg. “You have to come with us.”

“I cannot, Major Sheppard,” Rodney said. John was so frustrated. There was no reason. No reason to do this. “I can’t leave the city.”

“Can’t?” John asked, anger suddenly boiling his blood. If the Lanteans had programmed him with something, if they were the reason he couldn’t leave… John didn’t know what he would do. Or could do. “Or won’t?” He tried to stop his voice from breaking, but he was speaking loudly over the alarms.

And just as he was thinking how annoying the sound was, the noise stopped. The red lights stopped flashing, but stayed static, bathing the whole room in reddish tinge. It reminded John of blood, and of sunsets, and of his anger waiting just below the surface for Rodney’s reply. 

“Both,” Rodney admitted. And the way Rodney said it pulled any anger out of John. It was a tone John seldom heard from him. Small and defeated. The way he sometimes spoke about the Lanteans who put him to sleep unfinished centuries ago, before he covered it up with bitterness and sarcasm. 

John hated seeing him like this. It always made him think about what Rodney had said to him the day he’d found him. That programming to feel, to have emotions, was the cruelest thing the Lanteans had done. And it usually fueled John’s anger, but now it drained him. 

“Rodney, please,” John said, taking a step closer. They’d had only a few months together, but John couldn’t imagine having gone through any of it without Rodney. Without his snide remarks and sharp comebacks and the way he teased John without ever being too mean, yet was “accidentally” rude to everyone else. 

“Look, I get it,” John said. “This city is my home. More home than anywhere on Earth ever was. I don’t want to leave either, but it’s the only way.”

“I can’t,” Rodney said, more sternly now, though he had to look away from John. “And even if I could… I wouldn’t.”

That one stung only a little. “Not even for you” was left unsaid, but it’s what John was thinking. Rodney wouldn’t leave even if he could, not even if John were to beg and plead. 

“I won’t abandon the city like the ancients abandoned me,” Rodney said finitely. And it finally clicked for John. Rodney and Atlantis being two parts of the same whole. One can’t live without the other. John wasn't sure what Rodney would be, separated from Atlantis, but it was clear Rodney didn’t want to find out. 

“Of course,” John said quietly. 

“You should go,” Rodney said. “Life support has turned off to save power for the shields.”

Instead, John took a step away from the gate, closer to Rodney. They were practically standing toe to toe. Rodney looked at John quizzically. John leaned his head forward, putting a hand up to Rodney’s and pulling it in so their foreheads touched. 

John was used to the feel of Rodney’s skin by now. But it sent a spark through him every time. It reminded him of all the times their shoulders touched, or their knees bumped, or their hands were a little too close but neither of them bothered to move. The times John fell asleep during a movie, with his head on Rodney’s soft shoulder, or the fact that he’d wake up in bed, with Rodney watching over him. “You could at least pretend to sleep,” John would remark. “That seems pointless,” Rodney would reply. And John thought about leaving Rodney, walking through that gate alone, unsure if he’d ever see Rodney again, and he took a deep, unsteady breath. 

“John,” Rodney whispered. 

“Yeah, Rodney?” he asked, unsure what he was hoping for. 

“You have to go,” Rodney replied. 

“I know, buddy,” John said. He wasn’t sure if it was all in his head, but he was pretty sure he could feel the air’s oxygen depleting with each breath he took. That would surely explain the tightening in his chest, the difficulty in breathing. 

John lifted his head back up, looking Rodney in the eyes again, still with one hand on the side of his neck. He thought about how inappropriate it was to have feelings about this man, who wasn’t a man. An automaton, as Rodney liked to remind him constantly. A man who seemed to be made just for John. The perfect mix of wit and sarcasm and arrogance and far too much intelligence. Maybe the ancients didn’t know what they were doing all that time ago, maybe they were doing this just for John but they just didn’t know it yet. John felt ridiculous for the thought. 

He turned to leave without another word. He wouldn’t be able to handle a goodbye with Rodney. He’d hoped his eyes said at least most of what he’d wanted them to. 

“John!” Rodney said again after John had taken a few steps toward the gate. 

John stopped and turned quickly, and was not expecting Rodney to be so close to him again, eyes wild and searching. John’s eyebrows raised briefly and then Rodney grabbed John’s face with both hands and kissed him. And John stood still in shock until Rodney pulled away. 

“I hope… I hope it’s okay I did that. I just… in case something... I wanted to know what it was like,” Rodney said. 

“In general? Or with me?” John asked, breathily.

“Only you. Always you,” Rodney replied. 

And John couldn’t help but lean forward for another kiss, hand going up to the side of Rodney’s face. It was more intense than the first one, hungrier, and John was never good with words but he thought he could be good at this. Saying all the things he wanted to say with his eyes, or his lips. He certainly preferred the latter in this case. 

“Yeah. It’s okay that you did that,” John said. 

Rodney kissed John one more time, slow and soft and gentle. Then he pulled back. “Now go. Please. I’ll send a signal if… when it’s safe to come back.”

John gulped, and nodded, turning to walk to the gate. And before he walked through, he took one last look at Rodney, bathed in the red glow as the first yellow firework of gunfire splattered across the city’s shields. With a whoosh, he was standing in Cheyenne Mountain, the sound of so many voices suddenly deafening after his last quiet moments in Atlantis. His heart was still racing, and he took a few deep breaths to calm down as someone shut down the wormhole behind him. John stared through it, to the other side of the room, thinking about the room he’d just come from 3 million lightyears away.

3\. New Normal  
Rodney’s arm sat on a small table in front of John, while Rodney was in his charging pod. Not something he had to do often or for very long, but it was some of John’s only alone time these days. Not that he was complaining. 

John was playing with some settings on a tablet, checking out the clothing presets (various shades of beige potato sack clothing) and the ones they’d added themselves (like the Atlantis mission uniform). 

He didn’t usually get to play around with the settings, but Rodney’s arm had gotten damaged during a repair job of a flooded part of the city. It had taken a while to fix up the damage from the wraith attack, but the city survived, and so did Rodney, and John couldn’t have asked for anything more. 

“I trust you enough to leave you with a body part, and this is how you repay me?” Rodney asked as he stepped out of his pod. Rodney’s arm was currently clothed in a pink version of the Atlantis uniform. John giggled as he turned off the clothing options so that it would match Rodney’s t-shirt clad body once reattached. 

They would have to go back to the room John had once stumbled into to reattach the arm. John’s room wouldn’t have been able to hold everything needed for all the nanotech but it had been easy enough to move the smaller charging bay to his room.

Once Rodney was all fixed up, John led them back out into the hall “I want to take you somewhere. My favourite spot.”

“One of your ‘secret’ spots?” Rodney chided. He liked to tease John about the secret spots he’d found, since Rodney knew every inch of Atlantis. 

“Hey, I like my secret spots. That’s how I found you,” John said with a teasing flutter of eyelashes.

“You know I can just update the map in the gate room to include the removed layers,” Rodney said, ignoring him.

“Well that’s no fun. I like finding them accidentally,” John replied, sounding petulant even to his own ears.

“That seems inefficient,” Rodney frowned.

“I can’t believe I’m in love with a robot,” John said with an exasperated sigh. 

“Automaton,” Rodney corrected, as John knew he would, making him grin. Then Rodney continued, “But fine, I know you must be so lacking in adventure.”

“Ha,” John replied dryly, thinking about the unreasonably high percentage of missions that ended up going horribly wrong somehow. He decided to get them back on track since they were now walking in the direction he’d been planning to go anyway. “And no, it’s not one of my secret spots, just my favourite one.”

“Is this where you’re always sneaking off to for alone time?”

“You make it sound so clandestine,” John laughed. 

“Well how should I know what you get up to?” Rodney said grumpily. 

Finally they arrived at a balcony high up in the main tower. John took a deep breath as he looked out over the horizon, feeling like a King looking across his land from his castle. 

“Well, I think I can see the appeal,” Rodney said thoughtfully. 

John just smiled. Then he moved back inside and waved a hand by the wall, revealing a small compartment. “It’s golf. With an amazing view,” John explained as he handed Rodney a golf club that had been stowed in the compartment. 

“I should have known it would be sport related,” Rodney said, with exaggerated disappointment. 

John laughed softly as he started to wrap Rodney’s hands around the golf club, and angle his hips into the proper stance. He put down a ball and told Rodney to swing, offering a few last second tips. 

The ball went flying, and John really should have known that Rodney would ‘beautiful mind’ the physics and need no help at all. 

“And what exactly is the point of this?” Rodney asked as John was still admiring the impressive shot.

John proceeded to explain golf to Rodney, and driving ranges, and how it was relaxing to just go through the motions, and watch the tiny white ball disappear into the abyss of the ocean below. 

“Interesting,” Rodney said, as if it was something to learn and not just John’s rambly musings. It made John feel much more interesting and important than he likely deserved. John was glad the red-orange glow of the setting sun probably hid the colour rising in his cheeks. 

“Can I take you to my favourite spot next?” Rodney asked quietly a while later. It surprised John a little, he hadn’t really thought about Rodney having a favourite spot. 

“Yeah, of course,” John said, and let Rodney lead the way. 

They took a transporter that brought them to the top floor of one of the nearby buildings. They took some stairs and came out onto the roof. It was long and flat and Rodney brought them to the edge where he sat with his feet over the edge. John fought the brief feeling of vertigo as he looked over the edge, and settled down beside Rodney. 

“You just wanted to go higher than me,” John said. He bumped his shoulder lightly against Rodney’s. He teased only a little as he felt like Rodney was showing a rare vulnerability by bringing him here. 

“This is the first place I felt fresh air on my face,” Rodney said. He closed his eyes, letting the cool, night air wash over him. Rodney couldn’t help but just sit and watch Rodney for a while before he closed his eyes and let the sensation take over him too. 

“What was it like?” John asked. 

Rodney didn’t respond for a while. “Amazing,” he replied simply. 

John could understand that. Tried to imagine being born with full knowledge and memory, not growing up and forgetting all your first human experiences. He tried to imagine how overwhelming it would be to be touched for the first time, or hugged, or comforted. Or feeling the grass beneath your feet for the first time, sand between your toes, water over your body, or ocean wind through your hair. 

“It wasn’t for months,” Rodney said unprompted. “I’d been going about my duties, not knowing or even wondering what being outside was like. There was no reason to know. Until I was out in this wing one day. And I just had this thought, about taking the stairs to the roof and being outside. I just couldn’t resist once I’d thought about it. And it was amazing. Though they tried to program it out of me, wondering why I’d gone off my mission path.”

John opened his eyes then to look at Rodney with knitted brows. He hated hearing about how the Lanteans had mistreated him. But Rodney didn’t look mad, he seemed at peace. More at peace than John had ever seen him. 

“That was just the beginning of a long list of ‘problems’ with my programming,” Rodney finished with a small laugh. 

“Well whatever they messed up,” John said, half joking, “I’m glad they did.”

Rodney smiled, eyes still closed. “Me too.”

They sat a while longer, without talking, before Rodney finally opened his eyes and suggested they go play some chess. 

“You’re on,” John grinned, even though he never won against Rodney. But it was fun to try.

“Can I ask you something?” Rodney said later, while John was brushing his teeth. Rodney was sitting up in John’s bed. 

“You just did,” John pointed out. 

“That never gets old,” Rodney replied sarcastically. John winked in response, then swished and spat some water and returned to the room. 

“Why do you like me to be in your bed while you sleep?”

“Uh,” John said, suddenly mortified. “I mean, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to, I just thought --” John started. 

Rodney thankfully cut him off. “No no. I do like it. I just… I don’t understand why I like it. Or why you like it,” Rodney said. 

“Oh,” John said, still embarrassed, but not quite wanting to roll over and die. “Well, it’s comforting,” he tried with a shrug. “It’s warm, and safe, and it makes my mind blank, instead of thinking about wraith or whatever horror of the week, it just feels… blank. In a good way.”

John knew it wasn’t a great explanation. Knew it wouldn’t be easy for Rodney’s logical brain to understand. But some part of him clearly felt it too, he had to understand on some subconscious level.

“Huh,” Rodney said, thoughtfully looking off into the distance. Then after a moment, focused in on John, and patted the bed as if to ask why he wasn’t already curled around him. John grinned and happily obliged. Sure, he might not be the best with words. He might not be able to vocalize exactly what this was like, be he didn’t think he needed to. The way his heart simultaneously skipped excitedly and felt calm was the best kind of contradiction. 

The next morning they were in the mess hall for breakfast. Though Rodney didn’t eat, he came to sit with the team anyway. He and John always sat a little too close at meal times. John never found public displays of affection appropriate, but it was a small thing that he felt like he could get away with. 

Today though, Ronan had been watching John curiously from across the table, and John had been pretending not to notice. Then Teyla and Ford offered to fetch a second round of food and drink, and Rodney offered to help carry it, since Ronan’s list was pretty long.

“So, you’re dating a robot?” Ronan asked, innocently. 

John’s cheeks burned red. The man had his alien way of asking things in such a genuine way, that it was impossible to take offense. 

“Automaton,” John decided to correct simply. 

If it had been Ford, or someone else clearly teasing him, he may have argued. Was it really dating? What other word was there for it? He and Rodney hadn’t exactly discussed what they were. There was just an unspoken acknowledgement of the unique connection they had. 

Ronan still had an eyebrow raised at him, looking for affirmation.

John rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I guess I am,” he admitted.

Ronan’s face split into a huge grin. “Cool.”

And yeah… John thought so too.


End file.
